Avoiding the real issue
WE HUMANS relish being characterised as rational beings, differentiated from wild beasts by our ability to think and reason through complex issues; but deep down we resist allowing our lives to be driven by reason. The animal in us drives so many of the choices we make in life. We cherish our personal freedom – a state anchored in our capacity to think and reason – but we waste it by allowing our animal drives to enslave us.
For example, our brain knows which foods are good for us, and which we should avoid, but something else may override our reason when we behold sugar and cholesterol masquerading as pudding, fried chicken and banana cream pie. If only we could enjoy all the culinary pleasures our noses and our eyes lead us to while avoiding the inevitable consequences!
A similar thing happens when the issue of abortion comes up, because the struggle around abortion is really about the ability to enjoy the pleasure of sexual intercourse while avoiding its inevitable consequence: pregnancy!
If the plumbing in a woman’s body is working as designed, and her partner knows what he is doing, sexual intercourse is ecstatically pleasurable, and will result – eventually – in pregnancy. Homo sapiens is the only species where the female has the capacity for rapturous orgasm; if this were not so, many women – being rational beings (sapiens) – might use their brains and choose not to have sexual intercourse, endangering the future of the species. Some might argue that the human female, therefore, is highly evolved.
Prior to the sexual revolution in the 20th century, there was emphasis – nay, virtue – in humans developing self-control over their animal appetites and instincts. The sexual revolution encouraged giving in to animal appetites under the rubric of “self-fulfilment”. Popular music of the time taught: “If it feels good, do it!” “Do it till you’re satisfied!” “Don’t stop till you get enough!”
FREEDOM
And an ethic was created to legitimise doing whatever feels good. Doing whatever with whomever. That’s freedom!
Out the window goes any connection between sex and love, and faithful relationships with total commitment leading to the rearing and socialisation of children by both parents. Some people see this in religious terms, but it is not primarily a religious matter: it is a social issue with social consequences for all to see.
For sexual intercourse to become a common recreational activity then, technology has to be employed to avoid its procreational consequences. And that is what abortion is all about!
It’s difficult to return to reason when such intense animal pleasures are involved. Prochoice and pro-life arguments trip in when pregnancy occurs, but under normal circumstances, seriously consequential choices have long been made which result in pregnancy. And those choices are the elephant in the room which amazingly few seem to see or are prepared to discuss.
When people talk about “reproductive rights” they usually mean they wish the right to be able to have sexual intercourse without the possibility of reproduction; but if pregnancy does occur, they wish to be able to do away with it as quickly and cheaply and safely as possible.
Sperm and egg meeting lead to foetus. Human life. Separate from the mother, inside the mother, but totally dependent upon the mother. Inside the woman’s body, but not part of the woman’s body. That’s what sex naturally leads to. That’s why the body produces dopamine and pheromones. We are animals after all! Pro-abortion arguments are rooted in the sexual freedom of the sexual revolution.
Some launch off with the freedom and autonomy argument: that a woman has the right to choose what happens with her own body, which sounds reasonable; except that reason and science reveal that the foetus is not part of her body; the foetus is inside her body but is quite separate human life, with different DNA and maybe even a different blood type. That argument fails, but “Homo non-sapiens” will often persist with it.
MAIN OBJECTION
Most people (clearly not everyone) accept the right to life as fundamental, and therein lies the main objection to abortion: it kills human life. And so proabortionists have to find a way to deny that the fusion of sperm and egg produces human life. That argument is unscientific, and ridiculous; something non-human cannot grow into what is human.
And so pro-abortionists then have to argue that since the human life is not viable outside the woman, it does not have a right to life at all. Newborn infants are not viable without parental care; not to care for an infant is criminal neglect. Not to care for the health of the unborn is neglect. The viability argument fails, but “Homo non-sapiens” will often persist with it.
But what about pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, where no free choice to have sexual intercourse is involved? Surely the woman should be allowed to avoid bringing such babies to term?
There is danger in developing decisions on right and wrong based on exceptional violent situations. We may lose sight of the fact that a baby resulting from rape or incest is still 100 percent human with a right to life.
It seems as if the Supreme Court of the United States of America is about to reverse a decision ( Roe v Wade) made almost fifty years ago granting women the “right” to abortion. News reports quote the draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito as stating that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” Many will agree.
Pro-abortionists have responded with protests and demonstrations rather than with reasoned arguments. But passion – not reason – is what really has been behind this “debate” from the start.
What we need is rational holistic analysis of the sexual revolution. “Not everything that sweet you good fe you”.